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Sutton Park SCITT
Computing (2LTJ)

QTS full time

Financial support

Scholarship, bursary or student finance if you’re eligible

Qualification

QTS

QTS (qualified teacher status) allows you to teach in state schools in England.

It may also allow you to teach in the EU, the EEA and Switzerland. You should check with the institution you’d like to teach in for confirmation. The status of QTS in these countries may change after the UK leaves the EU. Please check GOV.UK for updates.

To teach in the rest of the UK or internationally, you may wish to consider a ‘PGCE (or PGDE) with QTS’ qualification instead.

Contents

About the course

In this course, you are trained by subject specialists in a secondary school to support you in your development as a teacher. You will be supported and guided in their subject knowledge development, as it is rare that a trainee teacher knows everything that a teacher of their subject needs to be able to teach. You will learn about pedagogy, about assessing student progress, about behaviour management and about the myriad things which teachers need to be able to do and to balance in their professional lives. You will manage your own ability to do all of these things increasingly well as the course progresses

You will be in school every school day from early September until the end of June. Monday to Thursday you will be in your main school, except for five weeks when you go to your second school. On Fridays you join all of your fellow trainees for 'hub training', generic training covering each of the teaching standards and more.

You are continuously assessed throughout the year using two documents on the online portal: the standards assessment document and the subject assessment document. You upload evidence to both documents and write a commentary about it. You add to the evidence and the commentary throughout the year and your mentor assesses each section for you. On these documents, you are demonstrating your increasing capability as a teacher.

Th online portal also records your weekly meetings at which your weekly targets are set, moving you forward in your professional development across the year in ways appropriate to the stage you are at in your training.

There are no assignments that you need to write. The assessment process is based entirely on the two online documents.

There is no guarantee of employment in your main school, but many trainees have gained employment in the schools in which they have trained or other schools involved in the SCITT.

Things our trainees have said:

Great course which I am extremely happy to be on!

Excellent support and guidance. Meetings and observation feedbacks have enabled me to reflect and learn from my teaching and has allowed me to make huge improvements in my delivery of lessons so far.

Very positive support ,which will improve me as a teacher, very high standards

Great support and treated as a valued member of staff.

Interview process

The interview takes place in the school which is likely to be your main school, if you are offered a place and accept it. This gives you the opportunity to ask yourself if this could be a place where you can see yourself developing as a teacher and if the people that you meet are the kind of people that you think will be supportive in your development. There will be representatives of the department who will introduce you to the school and who will be able to answer the sort of questions that you might like to ask about the setting. There will also be the director or deputy director of the SCITT who will be able to answer your questions about the how the course works. The representative of the subject will be looking at your readiness to train as a teacher of the subject whilst the director or deputy director will be looking at whether you meet the statutory requirements to train to teach.

There are three elements to the process:

an activity with children, to see if you are likely to be a person who can communicate with children around your subject area;

a written task;

an interview.

How school placements work

When a suitable application form is received, we look at where the person lives and which schools are able to support a trainee in their subject. We then make a preliminary decision on which would be the best school for them. The person is then invited to interview at this school.

There are sometimes circumstances when a person has a pre-existing connection with a school and has a preference to train there. This can happen in schools in addition to the ones listed, provided that the school is willing and able to provide the training.

Business Studies and Psychology trainees train by working with students aged 14 to 19; trainees in all other subjects train by working with students aged 11-16. In addition to this, all trainees will have experience of post 16 education and in primary schools.

The normal procedure is that a trainee will be at their main school between Monday and Thursday between the start of the course in early September until Christmas. During the first five weeks of the spring term each trainee goes to a second school to gain a contrasting experience.

After this, the trainee returns to their main school for the remainder of the course which finishes at the end of June. This ongoing link with the main school provides continuity, both with the children whom you experience progressing across the school year and with the teachers who support and guide you across the year.

Each Friday, we have 'hub training' when all the trainees from all schools and subjects meet together for training which covers all of the teaching standards. This mostly takes place at The Streetly Academy.

All of the training takes place in schools, except for one day at the Education Show.

Fees

The course fees for 2019/2020 are as follows:

Student type

Fees to pay

UK students

£9,000

EU students

£9,000

International students

£9,000

The fact that we do not spend your fees on university costs means that we pay the schools more significant amounts than do many providers, guaranteeing the individual training time from teachers which will lead to your professional progress.

Financial support

You could be eligible for either:

a scholarship of £28,000

a bursary of £26,000

To qualify for a scholarship you’ll need a degree of 2:1 or above in Computing or a related subject. For a bursary you’ll need a 2:2 or above in any subject.

You can’t claim both a bursary and a scholarship - you can only claim one.

Financial support from the training provider

Trainees have the opportunity to apply for a £2,000 bursary provided by Wesleyan to some trainees who are training in SCITTs in the Black Country boroughs. (All Sutton Park SCITT trainees are eligible to apply, even if they live or are in a main school outside these boroughs.)

We provide £100 to each trainee to spend on training or on resources relevant to their teaching.

Requirements

Qualifications

A UK honours degree or an overseas degree with NARIC certification stating its equivalence. We do not require any specific classification. The degree does not need to be related to the subject in which you wish to train, provided you can demonstrate a sufficient level of knowledge, understanding and skill in that subject.

The single focus throughout the course is on you developing into the best teacher that you can be in the year, so there are no distractions from this such as writing assignments for university courses.

You are immersed into the life of a subject department within a school where you are nurtured in your professional development in the way that is most appropriate for you at each time throughout the year. There is no blueprint for how you must train, for each trainee is different, comes with different levels of experience, has different personal characteristics and will develop styles of teaching which are appropriate for them as individuals.

Support from dedicated mentors in your school enables you to reflect and progress in your development as a teacher. This is teachers training teachers.

Our online progress and assessment portal gives you and those supporting you access to the necessary information anywhere and any time, using the Chromebook which we provide.

Ofsted said: "There is an extensive programme of training, centrally and on school placements, which ensures that outcomes are at least good for almost all trainees. This ensures that they are well prepared to teach at the beginning of their teaching careers."

Training with disabilities and other needs

We welcome trainees with disabilities and other needs openly. At every interview we inform applicants that, whatever health or other conditions they declare after they have accepted their place, we will provide whatever support and whatever reasonable adjustment is appropriate to whatever has been declared.

We have had successful trainees in the recent past who have declared mental health conditions as well as physical ones. Illness and disability is not a barrier to being a capable teacher.

We recognise that, very often, it is the individual themself who is the expert in their condition and we seek their guidance about the support that they need.

We have also provided support to trainees with dyslexia, getting ICT equipment for them. We have also paid for dyslexia diagnosis where a trainee suspected that he might be dyslexic.

Some of our school settings, including The Streetly Academy where most of the .Friday 'hub training' takes place, have extensive wheelchair access and lifts around the school.

Support and advice

Get support and advice about teaching

Register with Get into Teaching, the Department for Education’s free support and advice service, for personalised guidance from teaching experts. They can help you to prepare your application, book school experience, and access exclusive teaching events. You can also call them free on 0800 389 2500, or speak to an adviser using their online chat service, from 8am to 8pm, Monday to Friday.

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